Guideposts – August 2019

27

I

t was a beautiful July evening, the

sky still bright. I had all the win-

dows down as I drove home from work,

the smell of mowed grass drifting in

on the breeze. I rolled to a stop at a red

light. I found myself not wanting it to

change. I didn’t relish going home to

an empty house.

My life had been in a tailspin ever

since my wife told me that our

marriage was over, that she’d met

someone else. She filed for divorce

soon after that. Two years later, I was

still struggling.

The traffic light turned

green. I eased my foot

on the gas. Just as I drove

through the intersec-

tion, a thought popped

into my head, so clear

it was almost a com-

mand: Pray for your wife.

That’s the problem, I thought. I

don’t have a wife. But the idea was so

insistent. I pulled over to the side of

the road. Sitting there in the car, with

the engine ticking as it cooled and

my hands clasped in front of me, I felt

a little silly. But I was here, wasn’t I?

Might as well...

I didn’t know what to say. So I just

asked God to protect her and remind

her that he loved her. “Amen,” I

concluded hastily, before getting back

on the road.

The strange episode soon slipped

my mind. Until the next year.

That’s when I finally felt ready to

date again. I made a profile on a

dating website and was matched up

with a woman named Nancy. She

and I seemed to share a lot of the same

values and interests. And she had a

beautiful smile.

Nancy and I hit it off right away.

In fact, we had more in common than I

would have guessed from her profile.

Her husband had left her the previous

year. “It was a dark time for me,”

Nancy told me over dinner. “I didn’t

think I’d get through it.”

“When was this?” I asked. But I

already knew the answer.

“July of last year,” she replied.

I nodded but didn’t say anything.

Only several dates later would I tell

her about the compulsion to pray

that had come over me that beautiful

summer evening.

Nancy and I will soon celebrate

our nineteenth wedding anniversary.

Every day of these 19 years we have

spent together, I have prayed for my

wife—the wife God told me to pray

for before we’d even met.

DOUGLAS WELLS

Valparaiso, Indiana

MYSTERIOUS WAYS

MORE THAN COINCIDENCE

A thought popped into

my head, so clear it was almost a

command: Pray for your wife.

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